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TrantaLocked Yes, the color temperature of the actual LED light, not the filtered light. But it is also the brightness of LEDs compared to CCFL. On the same nits/lux, somehow LED pierces my eye like CCFL never was able to do.

But since the strain is different with certain monitors, i think there is more than one factor for me.

I am thinking about an 2009 LG TN Panel with HDMI. I even found a review for it, claiming it to be near perfect display even though it only covers 91% SRGB(which i find okay for an TN-Panel). I found the driver for it on the LG Page. They are available from 30-50€(+shipping frees) in my country. I only found 5 of them, but i only need one of them 🙂

But i will give the 3 monitors a last try, 2 are already here, just have to put them togehter.

    TrantaLocked I will look if the Samsung 2494 is available. I am ok with 60hz, so i will perhaps try the HDMI version. Thank you for the suggestion 🙂

        I will be updating this comment with relative backlight blue level (which is unchangeable) between the displays I'm testing.

        From least to most blue backlight temperature: Samsung 2494HM (most yellow) = Asus VG247Q1A < Acer Nitro KG241Y < Samsung G32A < LG 24GL600F (most blue)

        hayder1983 I'm testing the ASUS VG247Q1A 165Hz VA and it has a yellow-leaning LED temperature practically equivalent to the CCFL Samsung 2494HM! It also has the most saturated colors (in certain profiles) leaving a lot of breathing room for sRGB calibration, though it does have an sRGB mode. The menu is also good but is lacking just the gamma setting; it does have shadow boost but no apparent way to go to a darker gamma. I will do some more testing and let you know how it goes. So far the only drawback seems to be that its motion clarity is quite poor and probably the worst motion clarity of any VA I have ever seen.

        edit: Unfortunately I'm also getting eye strain with the Asus. I'n strongly considering just making the Samsung 2494 my primary.

            TrantaLocked I just trying the DELL U2520D. It is very strange monitor, a near perfect IPS Display, great colors for an IPS, Backlight goes down to 30-50 nits on lowest setting and for some reason i dont have the hammering pain with this device. I has 10.000 hz PWM(every other flickerfree device i tested also had 10.000+hz PWM), but somehow it is more acceptable to my eye. I dont think it is the refresh rate, but perhaps the colors are super accurate and my eyes are super happy with the colors. I am using the DCI-P3 mode(gamma = 2,6), but with contrast on factory setting. For some reason the SRGB mode is too greyish. (I also tried last night changing gamma to 2,4 on my TV and it also helped my eye strain.)
            Bad news is, it is near impossible to make a user defined profile with the dell. For some reason saturation is only available on the movie/game profile, but the dont let you choose color temperature on the two profiles. Gamma is not adjustable in any profile. That is stupid, not sure why they did that.
            Motion handling is really really good for an 60hz IPS. No blur trail at all. Could live with that, even play Borderlands 3 on it. I really hate ghosting, overshoot and motion blur.
            This might be a placebo effect and i still will try the other two business monitors. This Dell monitor is like 350€ and the other two are like 180€ each(BenQ IPS and BenQ TN panel), but that doesnt mean anything. Its only important to have less strain, because otherwise there is no fun in gaming.
            I am also trying very mild blue filter glasses from my optician(just 20€). They are meant for testing purposes. But i think they also help. It is very different to adjusting the color temperature, because everything doesnt get reddish but yellowish. It is far more acceptable.
            And to be honest, if i am unsure with these devices i will go back to CCFL, because they are cheap and i can have 4-6 of them if i want(if they help my eye strain).

              TrantaLocked The 2494HM is available at 35-50€ + shipping fees in my country. Not sure, if it is the best decision to go LED now, i already have 2 useless unusable LED screens standing here.

              If the only thing i can use is a 60hz LED 350€ IPS panel, i see no real advantage, i might just go back to a 60hz CCFL TN Panel. My TN Panel actually had nice colors too, it even had wide color gamut and good viewing angles. Especially white was much more satisfying to look at, which is like the most important thing...

                TrantaLocked Tested the BenQ BL2381T(IPS-Panel, 60hz, 180€, business model). It is unusable. Had a hammering pain in my eyes, had to stop after 2 minutes, as bad as the Eizo monitor i am owning. Blue filter glasses were usless. I also own BenQ ew3270u, it doesnt do the hammering pain(but gives me nausea).
                The colors were actually like i want them to be on a monitor(normal saturation, soothing, not too bright), but i think the backlight was wrong for me. Measuring PWM would only be possible under great pain, so decided to not try measure it.
                I have no idea, where this pain comes from, the Dell was usable for 4 hours without pain(using it right now). I will test the Dell as long as possible, but the BenQs arent helping my symptoms.
                I will test the second BenQ this evening, even when i am sure, that i result in the same eye pain.

                  TrantaLocked OLED white is more yellowish than white. Perhaps that is helping your symptoms. Some people say that you can see that with special glasses.

                    TrantaLocked I ordered the Samsung 2494HM. It should get here in a week.

                    The Dell U2520D gives my eyestrain too. Not as bad as the BenQ monitors i tested, but still unusable.

                        One thing to consider is that the source computer can be the reason for the eye strain. When I got a new laptop, I used it only with the same HP external IPS screen that had been problem free for 10+years, but with that new laptop, my eyes became bloodshot and very irritated in 4 hours of usage.

                        Now that trusty old HP display died and I started using this old cheap Samsung S24e650 display. With the old laptop this is not either causing any strain, but I'm pretty sure if I would connect the problematic laptop to this, it would give me eye strain.

                          hayder1983 Be aware that for the Samsung 2494HM the AV mode needs to be set to off as otherwise it does a digital overscan. Contrast may look worse at first but that's due to it resetting gamma and brightness values. Sharpness can be 56 or 60 for a neutral value and I personally use gamma 1 or 3 and keep magicolor off. Your GPU driver might also set the output range to Limited so you can change that to Full then change the HDMI Black Level on the monitor to Normal.

                          I've also switched it to my primary monitor. I don't even care anymore, the only competitive game I play it doesn't make a huge difference to play at 60Hz.

                          Going back to the Samsung 2494 I do still get some occasional strain but there is no serious burning feeling or headache that develops. It is definitely the least amount of any desktop monitor I have tried so it's a good baseline. There is one thing I am looking into which is the color of the drapes I have behind my monitor. I use dark grey drapes and will be trying out some drapes that are the same off-white as my wall, which is the backdrop color behind my wall-mounted TV. It's at least worth giving a shot to see if backdrop color makes a difference.

                          Maxx

                          I've used the same computer for all of the monitors I've talked about including the ones I like but I will keep that in mind.

                              There are two more things I am now considering as contributors to eye strain: backdrop color and distance. A lighter backdrop could improve eye strain by normalizing the amount of light the pupils need to adjust to. But there is also backdrop distance; there is a vaster space to focus, either on behind in the case of a laptop or on in the case of the TV. For my computer monitor, I am both close to the screen and the wall behind it. Doctors say that you tend to get more eye strain if you go for long periods focusing on nearby objects.

                              The eye strain I've been feeling with even the Samsung 2494 after very long sessions isn't a burning sensation like with the Alienware AW2521H but more like a basic muscle soreness. This supports the idea of totally separate types of eye strain going on. One could be focus related and one could be sensitivity to certain light wavelengths like blue or red, and sensitivity to certain types of polarization like horizontal or vertical. But it's also surprising because I never experienced eye strain like this on my 2494 before and it makes me think my eyes are also just losing stamina, or maybe I'm still recovering from a literal eye injury from using the other monitors. Or it could be using the C1 with vertical polarization has now made me more sensitive to horizontal or diagonal polarization.

                              I will try experimenting with different colored drapes and moving my desk out to put more space behind it. There's something I'm not totally getting, but I think we've at least identified that some monitors are worse for eye strain than others.

                                TrantaLocked There are two more things I am now considering as contributors to eye strain: backdrop color and distance. A lighter backdrop could improve eye strain by normalizing the amount of light the pupils need to adjust to

                                I recall someone here claimed to get more eyestrain from a device after they repainted the walls in their room, which I presume included the wall behind the emitting device, so if true that's more credence to that theory.

                                  TrantaLocked you are right. Different kind of eye strain with different causes. But i can also tell that eye strain is different dependant on the device and its settings. My Benq gives me only normal eye strain but gives me nausea. Eizo gives no nausea but the worst eye strain. The LG 24gl600f gave me less eye strain and it feeled completly different AND gave me nausea.

                                  I also think my glasses dont help at all. I visited a new eye doctor. He said i have chronical dry eyes and that can lead to the worst symptoms. He gave me new medication(Cortison 3 weeks, better eye drops 4times a day, sth for the night). And i stopped using my glasses, because they give me strain too. Muscle strain...

                                  I bought the syncmaster but also a dell u2410. They are cheap and a lot of people in the forum use them it seems. But i will try to get some eye rest first.

                                    Isn't this just amazing. My Lenovo x280 has been problem free. My old HP 27 inch display died, so I quickly replaced it with some old Samsung 24 inch. This is not producing eye strain, after testing 2 weeks full workdays.

                                    Now I decided I wanted a bigger display. I have been thinging that older displays with worse tech would be better, and anyway cheaper displays. I got a 32 inch ThinkVision which costs some 300€. It does not have PWM, but it produces immediate eye strain, with the same Laptop that has not produced eyestrain with 2 other displays.

                                    So what is it?

                                    Does anyone know what can be the reason why this cheap 32 inch does produce eye strain whereas one 27inch and 24 inch do not?

                                    I assume it cannot be temporal dithering as all of those are 8bit + FRC, but the other did not cause strain.

                                    It is not PWM.

                                    What is it?

                                      Nausea can come from ultra high refresh rates but also types of motion you aren't used to. I had nausea for a couple weeks when I first got my 360Hz monitor but I adjusted to it. I also had it the first time I bought a 144Hz monitor but it seems at least for me I got used to this. I don't really have trouble adjusting to any sort of motion but I will say that VA ghosting is still annoying and makes zero sense that this technology is half the monitor market.

                                      Despite all of the LTT videos about new $10K ultra-wide OLED monitors, budget monitor tech is still bad and it shouldn't be this bad at this point. It should not be possible for someone to buy something like the LG 24" UltraGear TN and get the absolute dog water primary colors (TN does not inherently have a bad color space! It's a design choice!) and blue black level LED color temperature it has (and overall be an objectively worse TN panel than a 2009 Syncmaster TN other than refresh rate), or a VA with 2-inch long color trails in 2022. It's ridiculous. None of those displays should even be on the market. Where is micro LED. Where are small budget OLED monitors. Where is the focus testing to minimize eye strain at default settings? What are monitor manufacturers doing???

                                      WHERE IS MICRO LED????

                                        My assumption is that it is not the LEDs, since I don't have any problems with blue light. Only flicker is a problem.

                                        Of course I could be wrong and there is a completely new source of eye strain in the form of light spectrum. But I've tried all kinds of blue blocking and even polarizing sunglasses and none of those help.

                                        I still suspect that the problematic panel is creating some form or temproal dithering or PWM type flicker that irriates my eyes, since it is exactly the same type of irritation.

                                        It feels like the white parts of my eyes would be tingling and like some wind would be blowing, cooling and drying the white parts. But it cannot be dryness, since the feeling starts immediately when watching the display. For dryness to be the reason, it would take some time for it to kick in and moisturizing eye drops would mitigate this, but they do not.

                                        My theory remais that some muscles in the eyes start to overwork due to the flicker (some kind of flicker) and the muscles start to need more blood supply, thus the blood vessels start get pumped, thus the eyes get red and irritated.

                                          Maxx yep, exactly same feelings here. I said it numeours times, my benq monitor with pc is fine, but when connected to MBA M1 causes eye strain, diziness, nausea …

                                            TrantaLocked Well, I am not sure I agree that cheap lousy monitors equate with low eystrain though. MY experience suggests that there is very little correlation between price and impact on eyes. I have a terrible old Acer laptop from 2012 with a very cheap washed out TN panel which cause zero eyestrain, cheap low grade 22" LG IPS (22MK430) which cause little strain and also tried mayn medium and high end displays, with excellent parametres and they killed my eyes. Also seen an horrible/amazing noname Chinese 144 Hz gaming QHD which caused no apparent strain (at least within 2 minutes I tested it).

                                              dev